Six months ago, when we announced our commitment to train 1 million Africans on digital skills within a year, we knew it was going to be a tough task. People across Africa are thirsty to explore how to take better advantage of the internet and the opportunities it offers; but frameworks that provide digital skills training on the continent are few and far between.

Fast forward 6 months, and we’re proud to update that we’ve reached the halfway mark. Over 500,000 Africans have received training that will enable them to build businesses, create jobs and boost economic growth across the continent.

For people who are unable to attend face-to-face training sessions and who want to acquire digital skills in their own time from their own phone or computer, we’re launching a new Digital Skills Africa online portal. The portal contains 89 online lessons on a wide range of digital subjects including web analytics, social media management and mobile marketing. Available in English and French and in the near future in Portuguese, we hope the portal will enable more people in more African countries to make the most of the web. The training is available to anyone, and people who complete the program will receive a Certificate of Online Proficiency.

One of our trainees, Esalako Hillary from Nairobi, signed up for the digital skills program to learn how to use online tools to promote his new company Entrevene Africa - a social enterprise that encourages entrepreneurship amongst university students. After the training he realized that, in addition to promoting his company, he could also offer a digital marketing service as an additional offering to his clients. Four months later, and Esalako and his team have expanded their business and grown their revenues by over 60%.

Vanessa Morris, a Ghanaian nursing graduate based in Nigeria had never heard about the term ‘digital marketing’ before she was invited to one of the digital skills courses by a friend. She decided to pursue a career in digital marketing after the training, and has since taken up a social media manager role with a top production company in Nigeria. In Vanessa’s words, “the best thing about this is that I now earn a lot more money doing a job that I really love.”

A recent Digital Skills training session at City Hall in Johannesburg, S. Africa

Helping people in Africa take advantage of the web is a task for everyone, and we’re very grateful to the many partners and collaborators that have given their support and played important roles in helping to get the program this far. We hope that through this and similar programs, Africans will begin to reap greater benefits from the internet.

Today, we’re excited to launch YouTube Kids in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe! YouTube Kids is an app built with parents and children in mind that makes it easier for kids to find videos on topics they want to explore. YouTube Kids has already been downloaded tens of millions of times by families who rate it among the top kids apps available. Family-friendly content from creators around the world is now available to download for free on Google Play and the App Store. Here are some of the key features:

Bright and playful designYour 4-year-old may already be a swiping expert, but the app’s design makes it even easier for little fingers to navigate with larger images and bold icons. And we’ve built in voice search so that even if your child can’t spell or type, they can still find videos of things they’re curious about.Family-focused contentWe’ve built the YouTube Kids app to be a more family-friendly experience than YouTube, a place for kids to explore their imagination and curiosity. You can browse channels and playlists in four categories: Shows, Music, Learning and Explore. Your favorite shows like LittleBabyBum, The ChuChuTV, Sockeye Media and Peppa Pig are in YouTube Kids. You’ll also find popular content from beloved African creators too.

Parental controlsWe’ve built options into the app that help you control the experience for your kids and put parents in the driving seat.

Learn how the app works: When parents open YouTube Kids, they learn upfront how our systems choose and recommend content and how to flag videos. We always try to make the videos available in the app family-friendly, but no system is perfect. So if you ever find a video you’re concerned about, please flag it. This helps make YouTube Kids better for everyone.

Search settings: We’ll also prompt you to make a choice about how broadly you want your child to explore - turn search on to access millions of family-friendly videos, or turn search off to restrict your child’s experience to a more limited set. Either way, parents decide the right experience for their family from the get-go.

Timer: Let the app be the bad guy with a built-in timer that lets you limit kids’ screen time. The app alerts your child when the session is over, so you don’t have to. (You’re welcome.)

Sound settings: Sometimes you need a little peace and quiet! You have an option to turn off background music and sound effects, so your kids can keep watching while you catch a breath.

Customize your passcode: We’ve also heard some parents prefer a personal passcode, rather than a spelled-out code, so we’ve added this option to access parental controls.

Logged out experience: The app is currently a signed-out experience with no ties to an account. We’ve also removed all features that are linked to an account like uploading, sharing, liking, etc.

We’re excited to bring YouTube Kids to parts of Africa, and look forward to your ideas too so that we can better help your family explore, learn and sing along. From our family to yours, happy exploring!